from the gone-but-not-forgotten dept

The European Court of Justice's awful "right to be forgotten" ruling is continuing to memory hole perfectly factual stories -- but publications like the BBC are bringing them back to light. Google has informed the BBC of 12 more stories that it is removing from its index thanks to requests from individuals who'd prefer that their history no longer be accessible to the public. While Google does not reveal who is making the request, it's often not too difficult to figure it out -- even though Google is now warning the BBC that sometimes the requester's name may only be in the comments.

I'm still trying to figure out what good this effort accomplishes. Deleting factual things makes no sense. Allowing people to go back and erase perhaps embarrassing things from their past may have a visceral appeal, but it's just silly. People do embarrassing things that they later regret. It's a part of life. Part of maturing is being able to admit that you did silly things in the past and that you learned from them. Trying to disappear them down the memory hole seems to highlight how an immature person remained immature.

from the institutionalized-streisanding dept

It's 2014 and do we really need to be reminded that, when you seek to censor something by demanding that it be removed from view, it's really only going to generate that much more attention to the original? I believe there's even a term for that sort of thing. As you may have heard, thanks to a ridiculous ruling in the EU Court of Justice, Google is being forced to start removing links to content, based on submissions by people who wish their past embarrassments would just disappear down the memory hole. The company received tens of thousands of requests for removals based on the new ruling, and last week began removing such links from its index, following a review by the new team the company had to put together to review these requests.

It appears that, as part of its transparency efforts, Google is also telling the websites who are being delinked that they are being delinked over this, because both the BBC and the Guardian have stories up today about how they've had stories removed from Google thanks to the "right to be forgotten" efforts. And, guess what? Both articles dig into what original articles have been removed, making it fairly easy to determine just who was so embarrassed and is now seeking to have that embarrassing past deleted. And, of course, by asking for the content to be removed, these brilliant individuals with embarrassing histories have made both the removal attempt and the original story newsworthy all over again.

First up, is the BBC, which received a notice about one of its articles being removed from search. That article is all about Merrill Lynch chairman Stan O'Neal losing his job. In fact, the only person named in the article is... Stan O'Neal. Take a wild guess what thin-skinned former top executive to a major US financial firm must have issued a "please forget me" request to Google? The BBC's Robert Preston -- author of both articles -- questions why this should be forgotten:

My column describes how O'Neal was forced out of Merrill after the investment bank suffered colossal losses on reckless investments it had made.

Is the data in it "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant"?

Hmmm.

Most people would argue that it is highly relevant for the track record, good or bad, of a business leader to remain on the public record - especially someone widely seen as having played an important role in the worst financial crisis in living memory (Merrill went to the brink of collapse the following year, and was rescued by Bank of America).

In other words, welcome to the new world in Europe, where all sorts of important, truthful and relevant information gets deleted.

Three of the articles, dating from 2010, relate to a now-retired Scottish Premier League referee, Dougie McDonald, who was found to have lied about his reasons for granting a penalty in a Celtic v Dundee United match, the backlash to which prompted his resignation.

The Guardian does searches for McDonald on both the US and UK versions of Google and finds that McDonald's lie is wiped from history over in the UK, while we Americans can still find it, no problem.

It's pretty likely that Paul Baxendale-Walker is the person complaining about that second article, since he's the main subject of that article. The other two... are not clear at all. The Post-It wars story names three individuals: Julien Berissi, Stephane Heude and Emilie Cozette. But none of them are portrayed in any way that would seem negative. It just shows them having some fun by making giant post-it artwork. And the other one is just weird because it's not an actual story, but an index page showing a week of story headlines and opening blurbs -- but apparently whichever article in the list caused the request wasn't directly included itself -- suggesting whoever sent in the request did a pretty bad job of figuring out what to censor.

Either way, both the Guardian and the BBC point out how ridiculous this is. Preston, at the BBC, says this is "confirming the fears of many in the industry" that this will be used "to curb freedom of expression and to suppress legitimate journalism that is in the public interest." Meanwhile, James Ball at the Guardian, notes how troubling this is, and starts to think of ways to deal with it, including highlighting every "deleted" article:

But this isn't enough. The Guardian, like the rest of the media, regularly writes about things people have done which might not be illegal but raise serious political, moral or ethical questions – tax avoidance, for example. These should not be allowed to disappear: to do so is a huge, if indirect, challenge to press freedom. The ruling has created a stopwatch on free expression – our journalism can be found only until someone asks for it to be hidden.

Publishers can and should do more to fight back. One route may be legal action. Others may be looking for search tools and engines outside the EU. Quicker than that is a direct innovation: how about any time a news outlet gets a notification, it tweets a link to the article that's just been disappeared. Would you follow @GdnVanished?

Preston has asked Google how the BBC can appeal, while Ball says the Guardian doesn't believe there's any official appeals process. Either way, it's safe to say that (1) this process is a mess and leading to the censorship of legitimate content and (2) people like Stan O'Neal and Dougie McDonald who thought that they could hide their embarrassing pasts under this ruling may not end up being very happy in the long term.

from the time-and-relative-dementia-in-copyright dept

It's amazing the stories that find me these days. Apparently, a guy named Stef Coburn, whose father Tony Coburn wrote the very first episode of Doctor Who, is claiming copyright on the Tardis, the iconic police phone booth that is also Doctor Who's mode of transportation (through time and space, of course). The younger Coburn claims that his father came up with the idea for the Tardis and told his children about it over the dinner table. He then takes it a step further and claims the informal agreement his father had with the BBC expired upon his death (which happened way back in 1977), at which point the rights transferred to his mother, who has since passed them on to him. He's now demanding that he get paid for every use of the Tardis since his father's death.

"It is by no means my wish to deprive legions of Doctor Who fans (of whom I was never one) of any aspect of their favourite children's programme. The only ends I wish to accomplish, by whatever lawful means present themselves, involve bringing about the public recognition that should by rights always have been his due, of my father James Anthony Coburn's seminal contribution to Doctor Who, and proper lawful recompense to his surviving estate."

It would be great to get some UK copyright lawyers to weigh in on the specifics, but it seems like there are a bunch of interrelated issues here, none of which bode well for Coburn's claim. There's a question of whether there's even a legitimate copyright here at all (copyright is supposed to be on expression, not ideas)? If there is a legitimate copyright, would it even have belonged to Coburn and not the producers of the show he was hired to write for? If it did belong to him and not the producers, what was the nature of the contract -- formal or informal -- between them and was there any indication that it would end upon his death? And, of course, there's the only issue of laches, for not doing a damn thing about this for 35 years. It seems fairly likely that nearly all of those questions are likely to be answered in a way that favors the BBC and not the younger Coburn.

Once again, though, it seems like yet another case where the popular myth of copyright -- that it's about "ownership" of some "creation" -- leads to this kind misguided attack.

Classical music and hymns are replacing rock and pop on BBC Radio Cymru as the deadline for a rights deal with leading Welsh-language musicians passes.

The right to broadcast the songs of 331 Welsh-language musicians and music publishers rests with Eos - the Welsh word for nightingale - from today.

The BBC said Eos had rejected a substantial offer to settle the dispute shortly before Christmas. As no agreement was reached, Radio Cymru has implemented changes to its broadcasting hours and programme content.

BBC Cymru Wales said in a statement on Monday it was "very disappointed" an agreement had not been reached and confirmed Radio Cymru programmes would be affected.

"Radio Cymru's commitment to support and develop Welsh music is a longstanding one - and we have listened carefully to the concerns of Welsh-language composers and artists during this dispute," the statement said.

Once again, the desire to make a cash grab has overwhelmed the desire to be heard. And it always seems to be "representatives" of the artists that keep cutting ahead in line to get their hands out first, often at the expense of the very artists they "serve."

Unsurprisingly, the pernicious acts of another performance rights group is behind Eos' search for a "fair price." Having been screwed by an old Techdirt favorite, Eos is now attempting to force the BBC make up for PRS' actions.

The musicians broke away from the Performing Rights Society (PRS) to join a new agency, claiming they were being short-changed for their work. The dispute arose from a change by the PRS in 2007 which many Welsh language artists claim cut their royalty payments by as much as 85%.

Rather than attempt to get PRS to pay this "fair share," Eos has decided to go after the broadcasters who had nothing to do with the severe slashing of royalty payments, which fell from £1.6m in 2007 to £260,000 in 2009. Eos is acting on the recommendation of research paper published in 2009 that presented a way to generate (or at least ask for) nearly 10 times the going rate per minute of broadcast time.

The report says artists who broadcast on BBC Radio Cymru receive 49p for every minute of airtime, collected by PRS. However, it says Radio Cymru is treated like an English local radio station, rather than a national broadcaster

The report argues that if the station was available on the UK DAB network of digital stations, artists would earn £4.71 per minute, nearly ten times as much. It said a Welsh-based royalties agency would be aiming to bring back in something more like the larger DAB royalties fees.

"Welsh language repertoire - Radio Cymru relies on that for its broadcasting," pointed out the report's joint author, Deian ap Rhisiart. "If the whole composers and publishers en block declare they are terminating their membership with the PRS, then the BBC haven't got any choice but to deal with them - that's the scenario."

At that point, a spokesman for BBC Wales (quite logically) claimed that this was a dispute between PRS and its Welsh members, and that these two entities should attempt to solve it on their own. Unfortunately, Welsh artists decided it would be better to set up their own organization and tangle with the BBC directly. The end result? An outcome that overreaching rights organizations all over the world are familiar with: no additional income and the loss of an outlet.

So, in a quest for "more," Welsh artists have ended up with less (at least temporarily) exposure and the very real potential of finding themselves vilified by the same listeners who used to consider themselves fans. Rather than go after PRS for screwing Welsh artists, Eos decided to pass the screwing along to Radio Cymru, pricing itself out of the market and depriving itself of a useful promotional tool.

Then there's 20th Century Fox trying to protect Family Guy... by issuing a takedown of the Wikipedia page about the show. Even worse? Another takedown for the show How I Met Your Mother, in which the "original work URL" listed is the CBS website for the show (which makes sense), but that very same URL is listed for takedown

While Sony Pictures issued a takedown supposedly about their film "The Other Guys," but which really targeted a ton of articles... about Megaupload.

And then there are just random ones like notoriously aggressive about IP studio Summit Entertainment issuing takedowns over the movie 50/50... but including an announcement about US Energy Secretary Steven Chu delivering a keynote speech at the "50th Anniversary" of SLAC (the Stanford Linear Accelerator). Apparently, you can't take a chance with anything that has "50" in the title. Might be the movie.

While these may be amusing to point out, they raise a much larger issue. Copyright holders like to insist that companies like Google and others can just "obviously" tell what is and what is not infringing and they should be able to magically stop piracy because of that. And yet... here we are, where the studios themselves can't even figure it out. How the hell do they expect others to figure it out for them?

from the mcalpine-effect dept

Folks in the UK have spent much of this month following the story of Lord McAlpine (Robert Alistair McAlpine) the former politician who worked for Margaret Thatcher. Earlier this month, the BBC reported on its Newsnight program that an unnamed former "senior" politician in the UK government was implicated in a child abuse scandal. People on Twitter quickly assumed from the description that it was McAlpine, and the story spread quickly. A few days later, the Guardian broke the story that it was a case of mistaken identity. That scandal has thrown the BBC into chaos over its reporting.

But, more interesting to us, is the fact that Lord McAlpine (not a Twitter user) has announced his intention to go after 10,000 Twitter users for either claiming he was the person in question or for retweeting someone else saying that. Some have already apologized for their tweets, but even among those who have, they claim that McAlpine's lawyers are going to ridiculous lengths, with one person, Sally Bercow, who has apologized, also claiming that McAlpine's lawyers are "ambulance chasers" and "big bullies."

But the decision to force 10,000 people to pay up seems crazy:

Lawyers acting for Lord McAlpine have also drawn up a "very long list" of targets they intend to pursue for defamation, including the authors of 1,000 original tweets and a further 9,000 individuals who retweeted those messages.

Apparently if you're "small time" you won't have to pay as much:

Lord McAlpine's solicitor, Andrew Reed, said last night that those with under 500 followers will be asked to make a donation to charity as part of a settlement, with an "administration fee" for sorting it out. He added that higher profile figures, such as Ms Bercow, are "a separate matter".

Here's the insane part: McAlpine claims that he's doing this to "restore my reputation." Demanding 10,000 people on Twitter pay up isn't going to "restore" your reputation. It's going to tarnish it. Yes, it's pretty clear that McAlpine was wronged by the initial reports that suggested he was involved in the scandal. And the BBC is paying up handsomely for their mistake (apparently a six figure settlement has already been negotiated). But the news that the BBC's report was false spread like wildfire. Everyone knows the report was false. Going after people on Twitter for talking about it doesn't do anything more to restore his reputation, it just makes him look like a giant bully -- and, in the process, calls much more attention to him and his tactics here.

from the let-it-go dept

We've never quite understood the strategy of electric automaker Tesla to sue the BBC and Top Gear because of an episode that involved a Tesla roadster, which the Top Gear crew mocked, at one point claiming it only got 55 miles before the batteries ran out of juice. This was a marginally amusing segment on a show that's known for tossing around a (somewhat joking) insult or six about lots of cars. In other words, no big deal. Except to Tesla -- and specifically its founder, Elon Musk, who lashed out angrily about the show and then sued for "libel" over the episode. Apparently that strategy failed even faster than a Tesla battery* and did so twice. After having the first lawsuit tossed out, an amended lawsuit met the same fate with the judge saying that the claims were "not capable of being defamatory at all, or, if it is, it is not capable of being a sufficiently serious defamatory meaning to constitute a real and substantial tort." In other words, go away.

The thing is, I can't see how this made any sense at all. Most people would have just moved on, but by suing it seems to only call more attention to the original claims and generate much more interest in that episode. If Tesla had just let it go and focused on, you know, building great cars, no one would have cared much about a jokey comment from a TV show.

* This, too, is a joke, so don't sue me for making a joke about your batteries. I'm actually a big fan of Tesla and am eagerly looking forward to the company's future models which look pretty damn cool.

from the can't-own-ideas dept

When I heard that the BBC was suing Silvio Berlusconi's Mediaset, just knowing the two players involved, I expected to side with the BBC. But on this one I'm left scratching my head over the BBC's ridiculous claim. Apparently, the BBC thinks that it owns the idea of a reality TV show about dancing, a la "Dancing With The Stars" here in the US. In the UK, the BBC apparently runs a similar show called Strictly Come Dancing. Mediaset has apparently launched a new show, Baila! Everyone seems to admit that MediaSet didn't even copy Strictly Come Dancing. Instead, Mediaset points out that it actually adapted a South American dance show "Bailando Por Un Sueno (Dancing For A Dream)," which is different... in that it includes "scantily-clad dancers," and has even included "a model [who] danced topless and simulated sex."

Silvio Berlusconi's son, Pier Silvio Berluscoi, apparently responded by saying that it's "Ok to copy ideas" in television, and he's right. Copyright applies to expression, not ideas. And, even in this case, the ideas appear to be different -- in some ways very different. So, I don't get it. Does the BBC really think that it can own the idea of people dancing on a television show? It seems clear that some of this is to protect the BBC's relationship with a competing Italian TV network, which did license the BBC's show -- but still this seems like a gross overreach by the BBC.

from the double-standards dept

We've been somewhat mystified about the complaints people have about images of people on Google Street View. Google is now "blurring" people to help deal with the issue, but it seems pretty silly, really. You're out in public. Someone can randomly take your photo. Of course, the backlash against Google Street View has been particularly harsh throughout Europe, where people insist it's a massive affront to their privacy. And yet... Glyn Moody points us to a blog post comparing the reaction to Street View to the reaction to the BBC putting up a high-def image of crowds at the Royal Wedding, and asking people if they can spot themselves.

This raises an interesting question on privacy and balance.

Google decided to blur the faces of ordinary people going about their ordinary activities caught on Street View.

The BBC have decided, where events like the Royal Wedding are concerned, it's fine to have high definition street shots showing the faces of ordinary people in the crowd; not to mention police officers, armed forces and - presumably - under-cover crowd security officers.

It certainly seems like a double standard. Is there something different about this being an "event"? I can't see how that makes much of a difference, really. Is there something about it being a "US" company vs. a UK organization? Or do people just not really think through these things until someone freaks out and screams "privacy violation!"?

from the disgrace dept

We've been discussing the ridiculously anti-free speech super injunctions in the UK, which block the press or anyone from reporting on certain things (even if factual). What's amazing is how frequently these seem to be used by famous people in the UK, basically, to avoid being embarrassed by their own actions (having an affair seems to be a big one). Most of the folks in the press seem to find these quite ridiculous, which is why it's surprising to many to find out that the BBC's Andrew Marr took out one such super injunction himself a few years back to avoid having details come out about an affair he had with another journalist. The only reason it's come out now is that he's admitting he's "embarrassed" that he got the super injunction in the first place. As others point out, it's pretty hypocritical as a journalist to then seek to censor other journalists.

Mr Hislop, who has twice challenged Mr Marr's super-injunction, said: "As a leading BBC interviewer who is asking politicians about failures in judgment, failures in their private lives, inconsistencies, it was pretty rank of him to have an injunction while working as an active journalist.